While I was reading Vincent Marissal's column, today in La Presse, I couldn't refrain from being exasperate because of the economic inability of many Quebec's most influencial columnists. In particular, I'd like to temperate an argument and denounce a complete misunderstanding from Marissal's paper.

When Vincent Marissal says that the Harper's allocation of 1200$ annually for kindergarden do not response adequatly to the lack of places in the childcare system, he is partially right. In fact, it doesn't answer that specific problem, but it solves partially another one which concern economists for many years now. By allowing a revenue to parents who prefer to stay at home with their child, the Harper's allocation address the problem of the recognition of their work. It is no doubt that raising children and doing household duties has a value. But, up to now, traditional measures of national output only consider in-market activities. The Harper's plan is correcting a part of this problem by equalizing the value of of house work and traditional work, at least in terms of production.

In another part of his paper, Marissal says that the new plan do prove inplicitely the existence of a fiscal imbalance in Canada. He is totally wrong. By refusing to raise its provincial selling tax to occupy the new fiscal space freeed by the GST decreasing, Quebec'S government has proved the so-called fiscal imbalance isn't really an issue. If the problem was so important, there is no doubt Quebec would have raised its taxes. Moreover, this mecanism had the advantage to be economically efficient and to value transparency in public policies. By prefering a tortuous negociation about transfers, Quebec has demonstrated he could manage with or without Ottawa's help.